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November 2010 travel news 27
Why doesn’t someone make a plan? I’ve
never in my life seen so many ditches
being dug and filled, then dug and filled,
then... Laying ultra high-tech optic fibre
cables for our new and improved internet
providers. Let’s get high-tech and talk to
each other instead of causing mayhem on
the side of the road.
This is an old chestnut — airline taxes
and surcharges. There is absolutely no
transparency — what are we paying for?
The sad thing is no one can give you a
straight answer and, believe you me, I
have tried. Airlines are now tax collectors
for the governments of the world; a fare
to London now attracts almost as much
tax and surcharges as the airfare itself.
But this is not the end, more like just the
beginning. Germany and now Austria
have just introduced a carbon tax and
a host of airports around the world
charge on departure for so-called airport
improvement taxes.
We drove to Western Kenya for the
children’s half-term and what a pleasure
that was. New roads all the way and very
little traffic — bliss.This might seem like
a strange statement, particularly for our
overseas readers. Our roads have been
so bad for so long it’s still a novelty to drive
on what you folk would term as normal.
The road across the Rift Valley from Mahi
Mahiu to Narok is brilliant with only the odd
warranty work going on, well signposted,
100-metre diversions — no worries.
Beyond Narok to Sotik to the north of
the Masai Mara is a blast; Kisii town is a
construction site, no signposts but helpful
traffic police, although it has to be said
they were taken aback on being asked
for directions. I’m assuming that they are
not asked very often — probably given a
wide berth for all the right reasons. That
said, they were exceptionally courteous
and their directions were spot-on.
Just back from Australia, meeting with the
folk who supply the software that brings
our little e-magazine to you. Clever blokes
those Ozzies. There and back in 7 days,
I’m out of my mind, I know. One of the
highlights was travelling Qatar Airways to
Melbourne via Doha. The aircraft on the
outbound flight from Doha to Melbourne
was just out of the box, and the new on-
board technology was awesome. Aside
from over 500 movies and TV shows to
choose from — on demand of course
— there was a Jukebox feature on the
music channel where you could select up
to 70 songs, move them to your Jukebox
and listen à la iPod. Brilliant! But more
brilliant was the GoogleEarth-type map
—
on landing it defied description. If
you’ve ever used GoogleEarth, you’ll
know there is a slide feature to zoom
in or out. Well, in this case the aircraft
was doing the zooming-in, quite literally.
Hard to explain, but a definite wow factor.
A great airline with all mod cons - to be
highly recommended.
Australia too is a brilliant destination,
there somehow seems to be an affinity
between our two countries — probably
borne out of both of us punching above
our weight in the sporting arenas of the
world. Beer’s good too; mind you, so is
ours - but their wine... Now that’s another
story.
TCB